is it easier to brick incredible than moto droid1?

No RSD lite to fix your phone. It is, from my understanding, easier to brick the HTC Incredible than the Moto Droid (seems unbrickable). ROM Manager will flash Recovery and ROM's once you are rooted.

 

Kinda right here. Yes it could be easier to brick. The droid you couldn't overwrite the bootloader, with the unlocked bootloader we have now, we change that as we please. Mixing and matching Kernels, bootloaders and radios can be risky. But overall the incredible is pretty unbrickable. If your asking this question I doubt anything you will try will lead to a brick.(No offense meant)

Rom manager will not write recovery with root alone. Unless you have s-off the only way to flash a new recovery is with unrevoked tool.

 

I agree with what Doug said. To add a bit more:

be conscious with flashing your radio (dont flash the same radio version on top of each other)

be cautious updating your recovery. I am still using Clockworkmod 2.5.0.1 with no issues

These are the only 2 potential areas that I am aware of that can truly brick your phone

Be patient!!! Some updates can take some time to install. Dont go pulling your battery during a update and you should be fine.

If anything else gets screwed up, no matter how bad, there's a 99% chance a nandroid backup will save you

 

Without s-off the only way to rewrite the recovery is with the unrevoked tool. The best way to get back to stock rom and recovery is the RUU. Its kinda like HTC's version of rsdlite.

So no Rom manager can't get you to completely back to stock

 

Its like rsdlite in the fact it flashes the phone, but only back to stock. You can't ruu to a rooted rom. Also instead RUUing you can find the stock PB31IMG.zip, put it on the SD card boot into the bootloader and the phone will flash itself back to a stock version. It down grades roms, the hboot and the recovery.img.

Downfall with the PB31IMG.zip is there are a mess of them floating around to flash different things so be careful on which one you chose.

 

K here we go... HTC is a lil different then the droid but close to the same. You got almost all of it right. I'll break it down as you did.

1. Hboot is the bootloader and it is changeable but not a necessary change.

2. S-off means full nand unlocked. Its a unlocked bootloader. This is means you can write to the /system with the phone booted. Without s-off you can only write to the /system while in recovery.With s-off metamorh, ninjamorph and root explorer will work.

3. Recovery is the same as the droid but without s-off the only way to upgrade the recovery img is with the unrevoked tool. IE clicking flash recovery in rom manager does not work. It'll say it has the new recovery boot it won't stick upon reboot. Also there is no sprecovery so if not already get comfortable with CW. (Most everyone knows how to use it as I am sure you do.)

4. The PB31IMG is like an update zip but there aren't any root versions out there. And yes if you totally effed the phone it might bring it back. PB31IMG can also only flash certain items, such as there PB31IMGs that flash a splashscreen, there are ones that just do radios, and ones that will upgrade the hboot. So like I said be careful on what you choose as they are all named PB31IMG.zip

5. Answered above.

6. As long as it is a full radio img you can flash as you please. Its the patcher that came out called "dinc_ota" that you should not reflash. I repeat only full radio imgs are safe as they complete rewrite over it and not patch it.

I hope this helps. If you have more ?'s please feel free to ask and i will answer the best I can.